“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”—Napoleon.
“He was the interpreter of Nature, dipping his pen into Mind.”—Suidas.
REV. HARRY LEIGH YEWENS.
Thirty-seven years have had their entrances and their exits since Col. Drake’s little operation on Oil Creek played ducks and drakes with lard-oil lamps and tallow-dips. That seventy-foot hole on the flats below Titusville gave mankind a queer variety of things besides the best light on “this grain of sand and tears we call the earth.” With the illuminating blessing enough wickedness and jollity were mixed up to knock out Sodom and Gomorrah in one round. The festive boys who painted the early oil-towns red are getting gray and wrinkled, yet they smile clear down to their boots as they think of Petroleum Centre, Pithole, Babylon, or any other of the rapid places which shed a lurid glare along in the sixties. The smile is not so much on account of flowing wells and six-dollar crude as because of the rollicking scenes which carmined the pioneer-period of Petroleum. These were the palmy days of unfathomable mud, swearing teamsters, big barrels, high prices, abundant cash and easy morals, when men left their religion and dress-suits “away out in the United States.” The air was redolent of oil and smoke and naughtiness, but there was no lack of hearty kindness and the sort of charity that makes the angels want to flap their wings and give “three cheers and a tiger.” Even as the city destroyed by fire from heaven boasted one righteous person in the shape of Lot, whose wife was turned into a pillar of salt for being too fresh, so the busy Oil-Dorado had a host of capital fellows, true as steel, bright as a dollar and “quicker’n greas’d lightnin’!” Braver, better, nobler, squarer men never doffed a tile to a pretty girl or elevated a heavy boot to the coat-tails of a scoundrel. About the well, on the streets, in stores and offices could be found gallant souls attracted from the ends of the world by glowing pictures—real oil-paintings—of huge fortunes gained in a twinkling. Ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, soldiers, professors, farmers, mechanics and members of every industry were neither few nor far between in the exciting scramble for “the root of all evil.”
WILL S. WHITAKER. ROBERT LACY COCHRAN.
ALBERT PAWLING WHITAKER.
To keep matters straight and slake the thirst for current literature newspapers were absolutely necessary. Going back to 1859, the eventful year that brought petroleum to the front, Venango county had three weeklies. The oldest of these was the Spectator, established at Franklin in 1849, by Albert P. Whitaker. At the goodly age of seventy-eight he wielded a vigorous pen and died in February, 1897. A zealous disciple of Izaak Walton and Thomas Jefferson, he could hook a fish or indite a pungent editorial with equal dexterity. He was an encyclopedia of political lore and racy stories. His Spectator was no idle spectator of passing incidents. In 1851 Col. James Bleakley, subsequently a prosperous producer and banker, secured an interest, selling it in 1853 to R. L. Cochran, who soon became sole proprietor and published the paper seven years. Mr. Cochran took an active part in politics and agriculture and exerted wide influence. A keen, incisive writer and entertaining talker, with the courage of his convictions and the good of the public at heart, his sterling qualities inspired confidence and respect. Probably no man in Northwestern Pennsylvania had a stronger personal following. The Spectator flourished like a prize sunflower under his tactful management. It printed the first “oil report,” giving a list of wells drilling and rigs up or building in the spring of 1860. Desiring to engage in banking, R. L. Cochran sold the paper to A. P. Whitaker, its founder, and C. C. Cochran. The latter retiring in 1861, Whitaker played a lone hand three years, when the two Cochrans again purchased the establishment. A. P. Whitaker and his son, John H., a first-class printer, bought it back in 1866 and ran the concern four years. Then the elder Whitaker once more dropped out, returning in 1876 and resuming entire control a year later, which closed the shuttlecock-changes of ownership that had been in vogue for twenty-five years. Will S. Whitaker, an accomplished typo and twice the nominee of his party for mayor, had long assisted his father in conducting the staunch exponent of unadulterated Democracy. Col. Bleakley passed away in 1884, leaving a fine estate as a monument of his successful career. He built the Bleakley Block, founded the International Bank, served as City Councilman and was partner in 1842-4 of John W. Shugert in the publication of the Democratic Arch, noted for aggressiveness and sarcasm. John H. Whitaker died in Tennessee years ago. R. L. Cochran was killed in June, 1893, on his farm in Sugarcreek Township, by the accidental discharge of a gun. The paper began regular “oil-reports” in 1862, prepared by Charles C. Duffield, now of Pittsburg, who would go up the Allegheny to Warren and float down in a skiff, stopping at the wells. P. J. Donahoe is the present editor and proprietor.
